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The Pleasanton Unified School District Board of Trustees is returning from its summer-break hiatus to a list of noteworthy action items during Thursday’s meeting, including one that would allocate $415,000 in one-time funds to go toward classified and management employees.
According to the district, the one-time money, which was reviewed and discussed by the board in June, would help reinstate educational degree stipends for those employees which were previously frozen during last school year’s budget reductions.
“These reductions have proven to negatively impact the District’s ability to retain and attract staff as well as staff morale,” according to Thursday’s staff report.
Over the past couple years, PUSD has had to address significant financial challenges that the district has attributed to declining enrollment, rising operational costs, pandemic-era one-time funds running out and overall low funding from the state’s Local Control Funding Formula.
That’s why the school board, over those years, has had to make some tough budget cuts and reductions. During the last school year, the board identified $11.2 million in budget reductions for this current 2026-27 school year.
But since those reductions were approved, the district has also identified additional revenues and implemented certain negotiated reductions that has allowed the district to restore some staff positions.
One of those additional revenue streams was the approximately $11.685 million in new one-time state funding that the board reviewed as part of its draft 2026-27 budget adoption on June 11.
During that meeting, the board directed staff to return with recommendations regarding the use of the one-time funds. Staff later returned with those recommendations on June 25.
Following a lengthy discussion, the board ultimately approved the allocation of $11.035 million of the available one-time funding to go toward restoring the 2025-26 negative ending fund balance; increasing the economic uncertainty reserved by 2; curriculum and instructional materials; and restoring the Health Services Assistant positions that had been previously reduced for one year.
During that same meeting, the board also directed staff to return with recommendations for allocating the remaining $650,000 in one-time funds, which is what is set to come before the board on Thursday.
According to Thursday’s report, classified staff and management employees, as part of the recent budget reductions, have had their work calendars reduced, which have resulted in ongoing salary reductions. But in reinstating the educational stipends, the district is hoping to address those negative impacts, which have been felt by those employees.
According to the report, $192,000 will go toward classified employees while $223,000 will go toward management.
Staff will also be recommending that the board allow the district to take $235,000 of those remaining one-time funds and put that toward the economic uncertainty reserve.
The board’s open-session meeting is scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. Thursday (Aug. 13). Read the full agenda here.
In other business
* The board will be looking to ratify a nearly $752,000 agreement with BNO Builders for the Amador Valley High School Building N roof replacement.
This gym roof replacement is part of the district’s larger campus renovation project, which is funded by the $395 million Measure I bond and aims to build new athletic and performing arts facilities.
According to staff, the district was not able to complete the bidding process in time to bring the contract in front of the board before summer break started, which is why the board gave Assistant Superintendent of Business Services Ahmed Sheikholeslami authority on June 25 to enter into the contract with the lowest bidder, BNO Builders.
That contract is now in front of the board for official ratification as work on the roof replacement has already started.
* The board will also vote on ratifying a separate contract in the amount of nearly $149,400 with NG Builders for the Pleasanton Middle School landscape renovation project.
Similar to the roof replacement contract at Amador, the district did not have time to go through the proper bidding process and asked the board to give Sheikholeslami the authority to enter into the agreement over the summer.
According to staff, this work will address a small portion of PMS between the pickleball courts and the new field, which was completed last year, that was “damaged during construction” and requires landscape improvements.
* District staff from the Operations Department will present an annual report to the the board on the
Some of the topics the operations team will go over include beautification and major repair projects, funding updates, increased costs and efforts to reduce utility costs.
* During its consent calendar, which are items considered routine and are typically approved in a single vote, the board will be approving the resignation of now-former director of secondary education Joshua Butterfield.
Butterfield’s resignation was listed as effective on June 30. He has since been appointed as the director of secondary education at Castro Valley Unified School District.
